


Only Education Worth Having

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:37:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossover with The History Boys; Stuart/Posner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Education Worth Having

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Calico

 

 

Manchester. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd thought it'd be like Sheffield, like going back home - brick as far as the eye can see, grey air, packed narrow streets, frowning solid women, older blokes giving him appraising, dissatisfied once-overs. Maybe it _is_ like that in the daytime or on every other street. But here, Canal Street, is like nothing Posner's ever seen before. Jack laughs triumphantly at his expression, offers him a fag and fixes how he holds it.

"Told you it was brilliant," he says as Posner coughs and chokes and inhales, and then he pulls off his jacket. He's wearing the tightest white T-shirt Posner's ever seen, with low-slung jeans, and his usual ambling walk has changed to a purposeful strut, eyes flickering over the crowded street; Posner feels his mouth go alarmingly dry. 

"Jack -" he says, pleading and Jack rolls his eyes at him, tucks his pack of cigarettes into his back pocket and kisses his cheek, businesslike. 

"Sorry, darling," he says. "Eight weeks of fucking celibacy - I can't babysit _all_ night."

And that's how Posner ends up walking alone down Canal Street, flushing to the roots of his hair every time he meets anyone's eye but unable to stop staring helplessly at everyone. He's never _imagined_ anything like this, and his imagination has taken him pretty far in the past. He doesn't think even Dakin could imagine anything like this. 

He swallows the familiar pointless ache at the thought of Dakin and then jumps, startled - a man's stopped right in front of him, twenty-something and fit, with darkened blue eyes and a knowing mouth, curly black hair.

"It's more fun," he drawls, in a confidential drunken tone, leaning close - Posner smells smoke, clean sweat, a sharp alcoholic tang - "if you go inside." 

It's an innocuous enough thing to say, but the way he says it, Irish and lazy, it sounds filthy, like some innuendo Posner can't even guess at. The pulse in Posner's throat jumps unexpectedly, like it had the time - the one time - Dakin, laughing and drunk, had exaggeratedly kissed Posner's cheek before telling him to fuck off home till he knew what he wanted. The man's looking at Posner's mouth. 

"I don't know where," he says lamely but the man smiles, eyes lighting up, and pats his cheek.

"I can help with that." 

*

Posner can't dance. He _knows_ he can't dance, the way he knows he's small and Jewish and from Sheffield and homosexual and a sad fuck. It's just one of those facts. He tries to explain this, but Stuart - the man's name is Stuart, Stuart Alan Jones - doesn't seem interested.

"Come _on_ ," he says, fingers in Posner's waistband, eyes glittering unevenly in the strobing light. "Or fuck off, then, if you can't, I'm going to." 

He's already turning towards the dance-floor, sweat gleaming on his throat and damp in his hair; he's already licking his bottom lip and looking at someone else and Posner thinks, with a ferocity that shocks him, _no_. He's not going to fuck off home tonight, even if the alternative is making a prat out of himself.

He does make a prat of himself. Stuart grabs his hips, draws him in and pushes him away, untucks his shirt and pets at the bare skin underneath, while Posner stumbles and tries to move to the huge throbbing rhythm of the bass and of the heaving crowd. Stuart laughs and shakes his hair out.

"Christ, you _are_ terrible," he says and then he grabs Posner's face and kisses him, using his thumb to prise Posner's mouth wider open, the fingers of his other hand digging into the soft nape of Posner's neck. Posner moans and presses back into him and it's like Stuart's flipping switches all over his body, turning him on so easily - starting a prickle at the back of his neck, heat unfurling in his stomach, a surge of forward momentum rushing all through him, every bit of him wanting closer, closer, closer. He's harder than he's even been before in his life.

"Mm," Stuart says, brushes his hand once, deliberately light, over Posner's prick, bites his lip, and then lets him go. Posner can hear his own heavy breathing in his ears. Stuart's smiling, all self-satisfaction. "Fucking terrible. Points for effort, though. Been wanting it for a while, have you?"

"Yes," Posner says, too fervent, and Stuart smiles even wider, all promise. 

"Good." He puts his fingers back on Posner's mouth, traces the bow of his upper lip. "Go get me another drink then." 

Posner blinks at him. "What?"

"Another drink," Stuart says patiently, his eyes gleaming laughter. "Go fetch."

Posner fetches. Stuart drinks, leaning easily against Posner's shoulder, and then he drags him back out onto the dance-floor, mouths at his jaw, shows him how to move his hips. He spends half an hour talking and laughing to other people, one arm casually slung over Posner's shoulder, while Posner waits and aches, hot all over with wanting. 

"Where are you from, anyway?" Stuarts asks, finally, casually. "You're never from Manchester."

"I - Sheffield," Posner replies after a long blank second in which he honestly can't _remember_ , everything in the world narrowed to this bright sweaty space, the lights and the bass and the blokes watching him. And Stuart. "I'm down from Oxford, visiting a friend," and it's the most unimportant fact ever. "Stuart -"

"Yeah," Stuart says, watching him, bright-eyed and amused. "Back to mine?"

" _Please_ ," and Stuart laughs out loud and kisses his cheek. _Tongues_ his cheek, and whispers "all right, come on." 

* Stuart's place is big, sleek and grown-up, a world away from Posner's cramped bedroom at home and his empty rooms at Oxford. He doesn't really get a chance to look at the walls, though.

"What do you do, then?" Stuart says as he pulls his shirt off over his head. Slides his fingers invitingly down, over his flat gleaming stomach, and it's obvious he couldn't give a fuck about the answer. His trousers are down around his ankles already; he steps out of them, takes off his briefs. "At Oxford?" 

"History," Posner whispers, watching Stuart advance on him, and his knees make the next decision all by themselves. Stuart smiles down at him and tugs his chin up, a little roughly, looking entirely unsurprised. Apparently people get on their knees for him all the time. God, god. Posner can _smell_ him. 

"Know what you're doing?" Stuart's thumb on his lower lip. Stuart's prick, right there, hard and - he's leaning in, dumbly, and Stuart cups his jaw and holds him _back_.

"Condom," he says dryly. Waves one under Posner's nose. "Don't they teach you anything? Put it on me." 

Posner does, his fingers shaking, Stuart's hands carding through his hair. 

"Yes," Stuart says drunkenly, tipping his head back, "yeah, go on then, that mouth." _Hedonistic_ , Posner thinks, listening to Stuart's pleased sounds and trying to find the word, _sybaritic_ , and then he forgets it, tasting heat through latex and opening his mouth wider, sucking, pleasure spinning through him at the obscene, wordless noises that he's making. Pleasure, sparkling at the edges of his vision, and he thinks dizzily that it's Wilde, not Auden after all, Mr Hector had that one wrong. Or, better than both of them, Stuart Alan Jones. Auden, well. Auden's ancient history.

 


End file.
